Trash talk

Written By: - Date published: 4:32 pm, June 21st, 2012 - 34 comments
Categories: crime, Judith Collins, police - Tags: , ,

“Trasher” Tolley? “Crusher” Collins? Oh please. Why the need to try and dress these popinjays up with tough sounding nicknames? So now the first car has been crushed, and I find that I must agree with this expert:

Car crushing ‘discredits law’ – expert

However, Canterbury University criminologist Professor Greg Newbold is scathing of the crushing laws, describing them as “vindictive, malicious, petty and an undignified way of dealing with the problem”.

It was “ministerial grandstanding” and using it to look as if the Government was getting tough on crime, he told NZ Newswire.”I think it discredits the Government and it brings the legal system into disrepute and engenders disrespect for the law.”

Crushing a car would not have any effect, and if anything would be more antagonistic towards young drivers, most of who would go on to be productive members of society, he said. “It would be far better to confiscate it and sell it to another buyer.”

Boy racers spent a lot of money on their cars and it would be far more effective to take their licences off them, he said. He put the drop in offences down to fear of that, rather than car crushing.

Ministerial grandstanding is right – right down to the posed photo of the trophy kill. Yeah I’m sure that car put up a helluva fight.

34 comments on “Trash talk ”

  1. Akldnut 1

    Without a before and after it’s hard to tell whether it was really a boy racer “do up” or just an old heap of shit they were doing wheelies in and not really too worried if it got squished.
    Looking at the square headlights it looks like the former.

    • Akldnut 1.1

      Hell ! I meant it looks like the latter

    • David H 1.2

      Well the Article said that the police had removed the mags , new tyres, motor. Anything of value was stripped. The question is this : Who got the parts?.

      Via the Herald
      Smiling broadly, Mrs Tolley pressed the button to activate two 150-tonne presses, which crushed the stripped Nissan Laurel in less than a minute.

      and this from the same article
      Mr Briant wrote that the police had stripped the car including expensive new tyres, rims, the motor and hubcaps.

      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10814683

  2. Carol 2

    There were some pics of Trolley astride the car smiling in high heels, trying to look like a dominatrix…. fail!

    Also, I think this is just a CT effort to distract from Nact’s woes, Asset Sales Bill etc.

    • Robert M 2.1

      In general Tolley, soft sell, reasonableness and common sense- was not an easy target for the NZEI and PPTA. Tolley with stomach surgery and better chosen jewlery is rather more convincing than Collins, who like Shipley and Bradford has too much backside, something TV news crews cruely but accurately feature when they get space.
      Even in a backwoods nation like NZ, barely still in the first world- reasonable looks and presentation are the prerequsite for female politicians to succed. The real strike agains tShipley wasn’t just that she was an 110 not a 111, and not quite quick enough- but her looks were almost offensively unattractive and almost a mid canterbury bogan act of deliberate contempt at sophisticated values. Women employment counsellors can say all they want that its ability for women that counts, but it not true, even women lawyer s depend on looks mostly.

    • David H 2.2

      And if she had fallen off and hurt herself Crusher could have told her Acc won’t pay, because it’s a degenerative injury.

  3. Rodel 3

    If that photo is real I’m embarrassed for my country. What’s next…the armed offenders squad with torphy pictures? Tell me its photo-shopped. Low intelligence really is the gateway to right wing politics.
    Tories and dumb stunts go well together

  4. fatty 4

    Its medieval logic. Visual, public executions are from the middle-ages, this car crushing is a denial of enlightenment, so naturally it will resonate with National voters. The NZ Herald will support it too.

  5. fabregas4 5

    Say the car is worth 9k (which was just stated on the news – that is a 9k fine at least for a driving offence (or series of them I guess). Add that “off her Trolley” sees it as some sort of happy event then even someone as concerned about road safety as me feels queasy watching this.

  6. There is another country that likes to destroy peoples property in a vindictive, malicious, petty way
    Israel.
    I wonder if there is a connection?

    • McFlock 6.1

      don’t be subtle, Robert – explicitly state where you’re going with that, rather than positing rhetorical questions.

  7. Or taking it all the way. If you don’t pay a fine/rates/tax/debt/whatever? The government will bulldoze ya house.

  8. Georgy 8

    The behaviour of Minister Tolley was appalling – what an incredibly stupid thing to do. She should not have been there at all.

    • McFlock 8.1

      mind you, how incompetent is crushless collins if even tolley could do what she couldn’t?

  9. randal 9

    national is trash
    Labour gonna whip their ass!

  10. I could possibly work myself up to give a shit if petrolhead losers were people I actually valued in some sense. Newbold’s idea of confiscating the cars and selling them would be a good one if we weren’t talking about petrolhead loser cars – who’s going to buy one of those ludicrous wankers’ cars apart from another petrolhead loser? Recipe for ending up confiscating the same car again in a couple of years’ time…

  11. randal 11

    +1 fpr psycho milt.
    ordinary citizens should be issued with death rays so they can vaporise boy racer cars instantaneously.

    • Populuxe1 11.1

      Yep. Another +1 for Psycho Milt. The hoons don’t care if the car is confiscated because they can always buy another cheap import and start again. What really penetrates their adolescent narcissism is the very public shaming, which in the long run will do them a lot less harm then fines they can’t or won’t pay.

      • Colonial Viper 11.1.1

        Except that public, official shaming is a plus in this crowd, not a minus.

        • Populuxe1 11.1.1.1

          The shame actually comes from their peers because the shamed one has been made to look a fool by the absurdity of Collins overacting and generally embarrassed the cohort. It works for MPs too.

  12. xtasy 12

    Crushing cars seems to be a bit like a public whipping on a city square, where the cane is publicly smashed onto the bare buttocks of a shamed offender of whatever type.

    I thought such methods were the kind of stuff you get in medieval days, but National and Collins, joined and followed by her “trashy” “Trasher Tolley”, have led NZ back into the very dark ages.

    I am by no means a fan of “boy racers” or any others breaking the road code, seeking attention and behaving in a silly fashion, but this law and the recent crushing of that car of a Paraparaumu youth will only create more anger and resentful behaviour of the ones affected.

    Also, why crush a car? A yard worker or manager informed the media that most parts of value had been taken out before, yet there must be a mix of metals, plastics and so left in such a car body, which could and should have been taken out and separated, maybe for reuse, recycling or whatever.

    And what will happen to the crushed piece of that car now? Will it be melted down in a furnace in NZ, or will it be shipped to China for that and reuse as a resource?

    I really would like to know, as my suspicion is, that nothing much good comes from all this media attention seeking kind of action by madcap NatACT opportunists and wrong spirited populists.

    • David H 12.1

      “Crushing cars seems to be a bit like a public whipping on a city square, where the cane is publicly smashed onto the bare buttocks of a shamed offender of whatever type.”

      More like what they used to do in villages all across England back in the olden days to petty crims, and general pains in the ass, they put em in the stocks for a day, and let the populace throw rotten veges and food at them. A much better out come.

  13. Forest 13

    Is it legal for a non-police officer to wear a police vest?

    Do those high-heels meet OSH requirements for a scrapyard?

    • fender 13.1

      Good questions

      Its easy to see how she might not be noticed, blending in with all the other scrap.

  14. HC 14

    I’d like to see someone OIA the cost of crushing the car and compare this with how much revenue could have been generated by selling it off/stripping it for parts. How much are National willing to pay for Ministerial grandstanding during times of austerity? What a waste of a perfectly good car.

  15. Chris 15

    Good grief!I didn’t think that Tolley could get any sillier. High vis,high heels squealing like a valley girl.Bet hubby had a good night.
    Wonder why the media didn’t put her in a bikini?

  16. mike e 16

    they could have got $ 5 or $6,000 dollars for this car instead it cost the govt $200 to get it crushed. dumb and dumber.
    Image over substance typical national party.
    Boy racers and loud exhausts haven’t been slowed or stopped.
    Police are doing more paper work and less real work that’s why crime figures are coming down.
    If you make a complaint to police these days you get treated like a criminal they are deliberately fobbing people off to save paper work.

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